A golden day for Silverchair's sitting member

Josh Rakic

SILVERCHAIR drummer Ben Gillies married Jakica Ivancevic in their home city of Newcastle yesterday, 15 years after they met as teenagers.

Gillies, 30, beamed after exchanging vows with Ivancevic, 30, in Christ Church Cathedral, flanked by his two best men, Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns and talent scout Jake Denny.

"Jakica is the girl of my dreams. I never thought this was possible," Gillies told The Sun-Herald before departing for his honeymoon in Puerto Rico. "Jaki is the girl I've always dreamed of – everything I've ever wanted in a girl. She doesn't limit me, she's an amazing person, she has a beautiful heart, she can have a laugh, she dances and has fun and just loves life. I would have been mad to let her go."

The spiritual mentor and psychic to the stars wore an eye-catching 4.3-carat pink diamond ring and matching two-carat diamond earrings from Cerrone. Her gown was by Australian designer Henry Roth.

"Jaki saw the dress in Vogue and she called me straight away and said, 'That's my dress, I have to have it,"' said Roth, star adviser on television fashion program Project Runway Australia. "She came and saw me and tried it on and it was hers. She has such a great spirit and joy of life that she just carries the gown."

Gillies and Ivancevic met at TAFE when they were 14, but went their separate ways. Last July they reconnected at a party and became close friends, rarely going a day without contact. But it was not until 48 hours before his proposal, in January, that they kissed.

He was on a secluded detox getaway, having ended a six-year relationship 12 months earlier.

"We were lying on the beach under the stars with some wine and I remember thinking to myself that I don't want to be on my death bed and turn around and think, 'that was the girl who got away'," Gillies said. "So I leant over and kissed her on the cheek."

Two days later he had an "interim" diamond ring couriered from Newcastle, covered her bed with love notes and frangipani petals and asked her to marry him.

"We'd never even thought about a relationship before then – we just valued our friendship so much that we just loved hanging out," said Gillies. "We just loved each other's company and that was the foundation of our relationship and what made it so easy to ask her to spend the rest of her life with me. We know everything about each other – the good, the bad and the really bad. I couldn't be happier."

Johns's partner, model Louise Van de Vorst, Silverchair bandmate Chris Joannou and his Great Outdoors girlfriend Laura Csortan, manager John Watson and ABC3 and MTV personality Mitchell Tomlinson were among their guests yesterday. The newly weds will honeymoon for a fortnight before Gillies returns to Sydney to record Silverchair's sixth studio album.